The second preseason go around for the Binghamton University’s men’s tennis team did not go as smoothly as the first one. After a weekend that saw three Bearcats notch at least one singles victory, including three from newly recruited junior Sebastian Dietz, the Bearcats could only squeeze out one individual victory this past weekend at the Princeton Invitational. Appropriately enough, that victory came from senior captain Faisal Mohamed, who defeated Ryan Kim of the host Tigers 7-6, 6-2.

When asked about his team’s singles play this past weekend, head coach Adam Cohen expressed that he was disappointed with the results but went on to say, ‘They competed hard out there.’

While winning matches is obviously important to the second-year Binghamton coach, seeing his team working hard and giving it their all on each and every point may mean just as much, if not more.

‘As a team we always strive to compete,’ Cohen said. ‘We want to battle from first point to last point. Win or lose, we don’t ever want to be out-competed.’

Fortunately for the Bearcats, they can take more out of this past weekend than just knowing they competed hard. Doubles play, the Achilles heel of the 2006-2007 team, showed drastic improvement. Mohamed and Dietz paired up to reach the semifinals of the ‘A’ bracket doubles draw. The Binghamton duo opened up the first round by soundly handling the Yale tandem of Rory Green and Calvin Bennett by an 8-2 score. They then battled Cornell’s duo of Kyle Doppelt and Weston Nichols, coming out on top 8-6. Mohamed and Dietz finally went down in their third match of the weekend, the semifinals, against Columbia’s Jared Drucker and Magdy El Mihdawy.

Cohen was pleased with the showing of the first time doubles team, but when asked if the duo might possibly remain together come the start of the regular season in January after this performance, he said, ‘It’s much too early to say.’

Cohen seems confident in his team’s ability, but voiced that it was also too early to know their true strengths and weaknesses. He does know at least that he is expecting this year’s team to have better balance from top to bottom and cited his four-man recruiting class as a vehicle to ‘give us better balance.’

A team’s strengths and weaknesses can be an ambiguous concept, as collegiate tennis is as much an individual sport as it is a team sport.

‘Each guy has maybe three or four things to work on,’ Cohen said. ‘It’s such an individual deal.’

The Bearcats will certainly have the opportunity to not only fix their weaknesses, but to perfect their strengths as they play in five more preseason matches this fall season, including this upcoming weekend when they will be in Virginia for the Virginia State Open.